In Rwanda, radio presenter detained without charge

New York, May 18, 2012--Authorities in Rwanda have
imprisoned a radio presenter without charge since April 24 for allegedly uttering
a phrase deemed offensive to the survivors and victims of the 1994 genocide,
according to local
reports and local journalists.

Habarugira Epaphrodite, a reporter and presenter at Radio
Huguka, a community station in Rwanda's second-largest city Gitarama, has been
held in pretrial detention in relation to a newscast on April 22, Eugene
Ndekezi, the station's manager, told CPJ.

Ndekezi said the journalist mixed up the Kinyarwanda terms
for "victims" with that of "survivors" while reading a public service
announcement about local genocide commemoration events during the early morning
newscast. The prosecution accused the journalist of implying confusion between
genocide survivors and perpetrators, pro-government daily The New Timesreported.

Ndekezi told CPJ the journalist made a mistake, adding that
Epaphrodite had read the same report a day earlier without error. On May 3, a
magistrate in Gitarama extended Epaphrodite's detention for 30 days pending
further investigation, even though the journalist had accepted the accusations
and apologized, Ndekezi said.

"For uttering a word in error, Epaphrodite is being forced
to spend more than a month in jail," said CPJ East Africa Consultant Tom
Rhodes. "Authorities should release him immediately."

In another case relating to the sensitivity of reporting on
genocide, the Supreme Court on April 5 ruled in an appeal by former Umurabyo Editor Agnès Uwimana and
Sub-Editor Saidati Mukakibibi, reducing their prison
sentences of 17 and seven years to four and three years, respectively. Uwimana
and Mukakibibi were originally charged and arrested
in July 2010 and then convicted
in January 2011 on charges of genocide denial and promoting ethnic division for
articles published in the bi-monthly Umurabyo
tabloid in 2009, according to local journalists. In the appeal, the court
cleared charges of genocide denial but upheld the charges of inciting public
disorder and defamation of the head of state, local journalists told CPJ.